Christian Motto or Hate Symbol?

associated with white nationalist groups. This story is from ABC News by Lucien Brugerman and Nathan Luna on vemor eighteen, twenty twenty four.

assembolware for security. So when they were reviewing all of this information about him, some of his fellow service members became concerned about his tattoo because this specific warning is being used by nationalists, and so he was leveled as an insider threat determines that there is a risk that this person, you know, whether they're an employee or a contractor or another other person, will use any type of information and access to harm the security of the United States,

you know. So I think it's irresponsible to consider anyone who is you know, in the past, has been labeled as a potential insider to it to serve in any capacity with the US government, especially the Defense Department.

and white supremacy and fascist idealism. Now, I don't want to say everybody does that, but you get people like Pete Hegseth with this tattoo, and the whole controversy started months ago, and then he was deflecting and said it was that he started talking about how his other tattoo wasn't that. So it's like it's almost like they're trying to hide their real views. What do you think of that, Jonathan.

of military experience. B it was with the National Guard, not full time, and except for he was deployed, so there was a six eight month I don't know what, but it just makes me nervous when you see about giving an overseeing a position for entire the largest military operation in the world, all of the detail and absolute complexity of modern warfare, modern acquisition of weapons, development of

weapons through DHARPA, and all that. He has no experience with an upper level military position, and he is going to really take a long time, probably the entire four years to figure out his left hand from his right hand at that point. So I'm and I have a lot of other problems with it. The gentleman is going to destroy the separation of church and state. His tattoos may be an indication of that, But I think that first the appointment is simply to test loyalty in the Senate.

If they'll pass this guy and those other people, then you know they are are real sycophants. So there are centuries long military traditions of non political stance. You're not a political in the military, and you can be political in your private life, but in the military, wearing a uniform, you're a political. That's across all the services, and the training is secular and the indoctrination is strictly about war fighting. It's a non preferential treatment of religion. Any religion goes

just leave it out of the military. When you're on duty, your religion don't count no more. Everybody's secular. At that point, that whole thing is about to be overturned. And that means that what has been going on illegally in certain military academies where they are making cadets go to sessions of proselytizing by evangelicals or have like extra duty or other things they have to do which are work related

if they don't go. And even up to the point some chaplains in the military have boasted about being evangelical and creating Jesus warriors when these people have just gone through training that has put them at the lowest point they have ever been in their life, and they're grabbing them at this point. Now, there are organizations that have fought back against us and are fighting back against this.

But I am going to tell you that if you're sleep deprived, hungry, soaking, wet and cold, it's not the time to be preaching religion at you. It's time to be preaching. How you not get that way in that situation. So it's just it's just a really, really nasty situation. And this guy has no clue what he's doing. Once he gets there. He doesn't have a clue now, he won't have a clue later. And he can't be trained in the time allotted to be able to do a

senior military position like that. If he had been an admiral or a general, he would have had an entire fleet or an entire army unit, whatever, brigade or something to give him the knowledge about how to order stuff, how to how to find stuff, how to contract for stuff, all how to get that stuff to the troops, how the transportation system works, how all that's organized when you're going into a conflict, during the conflict and after the conflict.

I just don't think that he's going to be able to handle all that in any way that is going to be applicable to any stressful situations we come across and in the volatile world right now, that is not who we need in this position. So this will be a disaster. And if the senior military officers are there's another point, if the senior military officers are too slow to implement the policies of of this individual. You know what happens in.

be picking the worst candidate for every single position. Here we are talking about hiring someone to lead the US military that was expelled from it because he poses an insight, right, which which is crazy. The very type of people you really don't want in the military is put in charge of it, and and that's the point for Trump, and he does that for every position. So we will probably do a segment on how he plans to avoid having to vet his nominees through Congress. Maybe we'll talk about

this in a future episode. But yeah, this seems to me like the first step to autocracy. Limit the powers of Congress and have the president decide everything and put sic event in charge of the highest positions. But to me, there's a bigger issue here, and Jonathan seem to go in this direction. Having installed Christian supremacists in many high places and high level positions, increases the risk that the US will use its global influence to impose its religion

on the rest of the world. So far, the US expansionism has been fueled by greed and power, But if you add this religion to the mix, especially with the current situation in the Middle East, you'll get a very, very explosive cocktail. And as if Tran's presidency wasn't scary enough for the rest of us, outside the US, there's that threat looming in the future. So yeah, not great.

a way to make this specific tattoo about faith. That's because this isn't the only concerning tattoo. If this was his only tattoo of the sword, then you know, I wouldn't look at it twice. But the fact is he has several learning pieces of ink in addition to the obvious one that we just discussed. He also has the Jerusalem costs on his chest. And this isn't just any costs. Okay. He can claim that it isn't hateful all he wants,

but history says otherwise. This was a symbol of the knights templar, and it's also referred to as the Crusader's cost That's how you need to know about that one, right. In addition to that one, he has on his upper arm the thirteen flag, the thirteen star flag, it's called and underneath it it's an AR fifteen assault type rifle. Then there is the cross with the sword on his arm that references a biblical quote from Matthew and that says, do not think that I have come to bring peace

to earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. So this is like fighting sort of tattoos that are inciting violence. And he has patriotic nationalist tattoos. You know that one could definitely recognize as far right symbols like the one on his lower arm that says we the people, or the snake that says you know the joint or dies snake that represents the American Revolution. And I mean, when you combine all of these tattoos, like I said, it's not just one, it's the collection

of all of them as a whole. What else do you expect but this big bold I'm a Christian nationalist outcry message written literally all over his body.

is because there's this ambiguity about the tattoos. I'm not sick enough for Pete Hegseitt believe me, but I just don't know that we can honestly say for a positive one hundred percent that these tattoos are representing that. Now, John, I know you said you had some concerns about the separation of church and state over this. Do you have any other concerns maybe that you know about the military his leadership of the military.

they're probably going to refuse to take it. If they are if that is doubled down on, they have a choice. They can either hope they know they have a choice. They can either do what they're told, do what they're ordered to, or resign. If all the senior leaders who know what they're doing resign, what do you have leading your military, you know. So that's a major concern for me. The other thing is that this person would work probably

normally fail any background check to get a clearance. So since he has to be dealing with extremely classified material in the military above the secret level, he's probably going to get a clearance by default because of his position, and that's not the way to do it. We have another possible or probable in my mind, leak of very sensitive information to our enemies and to people who are not thinking well of us. So these are just two

more of the real problems I have with us. There's you know, our literal security as a nation is at stake with us, and somebody is just playing roulette with it, you know, And I'm just I'm not comfortable with any of.

have any decency, he doesn't have anything. The only thing he has is I want people to adore me, and and that's that's everything he wants and money and avoid prison, and that's why he uh tried to get elected in the first place. So yeah, I think it's it's it's it's terrifying all this uh and even even though it's not exactly white supremacism that's displayed by by his tatoos, He's it's still as a j described it, it's still

I want to impose religion to everyone. So that that's that's something that that's very scary because we also know that Trump is going to try to use the military two to help with his deportation uh set up. And so if he does and we start seeing people from different religion religions inside those camps, what do you think people like him are going to do to Muslim people? For example? What do you think he's start to tell you what he's going to do.

He's a Catholic, He's a very hardcore Catholic, and he's publicly stated on social media that the targeting Christians conservatives, patriots, and everyday Americans will end on day one of the new administrations. So he has a clear goal, he has a clear message.

guy also has to be somewhat of a diplomat. He negotiates with other people's defense and war departments and and you know, has to work with other people like South American and African nations joint exercises. And if he's a white supremacist, that could cause a lot of problems in the negotiating room too. If he just makes a few slips, we could lose allies, and that's going to be a

problem as well. But I totally agree with Cindy and Aja that there are so many reasons why this is a bad idea, and that's just, you know, just one more.